(POLITICS) Press photograph captioned Hoover Pledges Party S

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(POLITICS.) Press photograph captioned "Hoover Pledges Party Support of Negro Rights." Photograph, 7 x 9 inches, with inked Acme Newspictures stamp and printed caption slip on verso; minor wear. Washington, 2 October 1932

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This photograph documents the approximate moment when the bulk of Black voters shifted their allegiance from the Republican Party of Lincoln to the Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Republican Herbert Hoover had won the 1928 election with substantial Black support, but increasingly sought to win white southern support by making it a "lily-white" party. Mired in the Great Depression, he faced a tough re-election campaign in 1932, and his challenger Roosevelt had expressed some support for the early civil rights movement. In this photograph, Hoover has gathered Black supporters on the steps of the White House. Most notable is Roscoe Conklin Simmons, nephew of Booker T. Washington and long-time Republican activist (hand over heart, standing second from the left of Hoover). Hoover assured the crowd that "our party will not abandon or depart from its traditional duty toward the American Negro." Hoover nonetheless lost the election, due in part to surging Black support for Roosevelt.